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How do you MAXIMIZE autoshop efficiency and profitability? What are the new “best practices” in autoshop efficiency that will make your shop a magnet for new and returning customers?

Smart autoshop owners and managers have discovered that engaging in three particular “best practices” will amp-up your efficiency, enhance your reputation in the community, and fuel your long-term success. These “best practices” are:

Minimize Employee Turnover … Creating a profit-enhancing reputation for autoshop efficiency, reliability, and consistency is tremendously difficult when you have a high employee-turnover rate. Inexperienced new workers simply can’t keep your shop “humming along” the way your experienced veterans can. They can’t hit the same levels of efficiency.

The topic of “Retaining Great Employees” is so critical that SHRM—the international Society of Human Resource Management—has written very extensively about it. They have consistently noted that it is more efficient to retain a quality employee than to recruit, train, and orient a replacement employee of the same quality.

So make sure you KEEP your experienced veterans. Do the things needed to retain them: Treat them like family, pay them well, and offer attractive benefits. Your customers will ALSO appreciate and reward you for this, because customers are attracted to shops in which a known, trusted mechanic—or team of mechanics—works on their vehicle.

Create an Ethics Statement and Prominently Display It … At first blush, you might think, “What does ethics have to do with shop efficiency?” The answer is: plenty. When you create an atmosphere grounded on “Golden Rule” ethics—when you seek at all times to be honest and trustworthy in your work—that ethic “rains down psychologically” over all your employees. It makes your mechanics value and strive for quality work and efficient workflow in all they do.

Use Appointment-Scheduling Software… The last thing your customers need is to be without their car for several days because your shop hasn’t scheduled workflow well, has over-booked, etc. Don’t let that happen to you. Use an autoshop-scheduling software program such as Auto Bookings Online to dramatically reduce missed appointments and overbookings. This will also allow you to save valuable time, as you create a more reliable, EFFICIENT service and workflow.

Auto Bookings Online is an online tool specifically designed to help auto-repair shops maximize profitability through better-managed customer bookings.